In this reflection, we will have as our object of study a prominent psychologist, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky, a Russian Jew (1896–1934) who changed the way of thinking in psychology and education by affirming that the intellect is inextricably linked to the social and cultural context in which the individual develops.
To begin with, I would like to mention one aspect I could deduce from this prominent figure: socialization is the basis of his theory. Because by the time he lived, we knew Russia as the Soviet Union, a socialist state, which I believe might have been a determining factor in his theories. Therefore, I can conclude that Vygotsky’s lean was socialist and ultimately Marxist.
Vygotsky presented a sociocultural theory with three factors for human cognitive development and growth. These factors are:
Interpersonal factors (interactions that occur with people in the environment that are useful as information for children and make it a living experience for them; examples: internships, collaboration)
Historical-cultural factors (students/children need to interact with the "world" (people, objects, and institutions) so that they can change the thinking of students/children).
Individual factors (innate characteristics of students result in different learning trajectories and abilities): special versus normal needs
Vygotsky saw education as the artificial realm of natural developmental processes. The school’s goal is to teach scientific principles. Everyday conceptions are those that emerge spontaneously from experience, as opposed to scientific notions, which must belong to a system and are gained through self-awareness.
The Vygotsky connection to language learning sparked my curiosity. I work at a Montessori school where the sound of the letters takes priority over their names. The Nobel Prize-winning Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who attended a Montessori school as a child, praised this teaching method. Vygotsky states that the child appropriates oral language spontaneously, without a particular effort, because of his daily exposure to the oral communications that surround him. However, when the time comes to learn to read and write, he must understand that each sound corresponds to a symbol. The verbs that he already knew how to use more or less correctly are conjugated according to precise rules; he also realized the structure of the language.
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), by Vygotsky, explains the distance or gap between the skills that a child already possesses and what they can learn through the direction or support provided by a more informed child, adult, or classmate. Students with better talents and abilities in ZPD will share their knowledge and skills in completing tasks with their peers. The ZPD concept is based on the compatibility of the child’s existing abilities and potential. The child’s current achievement, at the first level, is taking on and completing activities or difficulties without the help of others, with some measure of genuine progress. Frequently, this is reviewed in schools. As "growth potential," I mean the ability a child achieves when led and supported by others.The ZPD is the difference or gap between the two skill levels. Vygotsky defines scaffolding as the temporary help provided by adults, parents, and teachers to a child as it moves through the so-called immediate development zone.
In summary, I’d like to outline what we expected based on Lev Vygotsky’s ZPD notion. The teacher must foremost be an expert in teaching, contextually relevant, and above all interactive; a source of areas of close development in their students; and a promoter of meaningful learning. It is the teacher’s responsibility to be an expert in the field of work and to be highly sensitive to the progress of the students’ growth in order to properly create and share development areas. The instructor must act as a bridge between the distinctive culture brought by some pupils and the development of new methods of capturing the human experience.
